Heat, air conditioning, and what Ontario actually requires you to provide

01Heat is not optional, and not negotiable

Under the Residential Tenancies Act, heat, electricity, fuel, gas and hot and cold water are vital services. A landlord cannot withhold or deliberately interfere with them, and that holds even where the tenant owes rent. Shutting off heat to move a dispute along is one of the fastest routes to a Board order against you, and to a provincial offences charge on top.

The Act also sets a season for heat, running from September 1 to June 15, during which supply cannot be withheld where you are the one supplying it.

02There is a provincial floor, and your city can raise it

There are two numbers here and landlords routinely only know one of them.

The province sets the floor. Where a landlord supplies the heat, Ontario Regulation 516/06 requires a room temperature of at least 20C, measured 1.5 metres above the floor and one metre from an exterior wall, in habitable space and in areas tenants normally use. That obligation runs from September 1 to June 15, which is the part of the year the regulation prescribes heat as a vital service.

Your municipality can then require more, and the big ones do. Toronto sets 21C but over a shorter season, and it moved those dates recently: the range was September 15 to June 1 until Chapter 497 was amended on April 30, 2025, and it is now October 1 to May 15. Anything written before that amendment has the old dates in it.

Where the provincial and municipal rules differ, you meet whichever is stricter on any given day. In Toronto in late September that is the provincial 20C, because the city's season has not started yet.

03Cooling is a different animal

There is no province-wide requirement to provide air conditioning in Ontario, and cooling is not on the vital services list. If a unit has no air conditioning, that on its own is not a maintenance breach.

Two things have changed around the edges of that, and both have dates.

From July 1, 2026, a tenant may install a window or portable air conditioner after giving the landlord written notice, provided it is safe and does not damage the unit. Where electricity is included in the rent, the landlord may charge a seasonal amount for it. This is a right the tenant now has, not a request you approve.

From June 1, 2026, Toronto requires buildings in the RentSafeTO program that have no air conditioning in the units to keep an indoor amenity space at or below 26C from June 1 to September 30. It applies to shared amenity rooms, not hallways, lobbies or laundry rooms, and not inside the units.

Separately, where a landlord does supply air conditioning in Toronto, it has to be operated from June 1 to September 30 to hold the unit at or below 26C. Supplying it is optional. Supplying it badly is not.

04What a heat complaint actually costs

05The habit that makes this cheap

Maintenance disputes are won and lost on dates and evidence, in exactly the same way notice disputes are. When the complaint came in, when you responded, when the contractor attended, what it cost, what the tenant was told.

TenantBay keeps issues, vendor visits through RepairBay, and the messages around them attached to the unit, so a maintenance history is something you already have rather than something you assemble the week before a hearing. It is the same reason the rest of the platform exists: the record is only useful if it was kept while the thing was happening.